DEPAUL UNIVERSITY  SCHOOL FOR NEW LEARNING  MA PROGRAM IN EDUCATING ADULTS (MAEA)
1 E. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, IL 60604 snlgrad@depaul.edu (312-362-8448)
Student Name:
PROPOSAL TEMPLATE FOR APPLIED INQUIRY PROJECT
DePaul ID:
Cohort Number:
Student Email:
Phone (Day):
Phone (Eve or Cell):
Faculty Mentor (FM):
Project Advisor (PA):
(as approved by Faculty Mentor)
FM Email:
ph:
PA Email:
ph:
Student’s area of practice re. educating adults:
See MAEA Guidebook & forms website; consult with faculty mentor for more details.
Phase I (EA 505 or 507). Date approved by Academic Committee: ______ (Faculty Mentor submits grade of PA)
Phase II (EA 506 or 508). Date approved by GSPRC ___________.
Grade for Phase II authorized by GSPRC upon approval of complete proposal; grade of PA posted by faculty mentor.
The AIP Proposal is organized into two phases and developed in consultation with your academic committee.
Phase I (EA 505 or 507) concerns the nature and focus of the project, along with a review of the literature (sections
I & II). Phase II (EA 506 or 508) concerns the plan for design and implementation and anticipated presentation of
the final work (sections III & IV).
The Phases may be registered for in the same or separate quarters. Note that you are likely to be drafting sections
of both phases simultaneously. Please use the guiding questions that follow as the outline for your Proposal. The
assessment form (to be completed by your Faculty Mentor and Project Advisor) is located on the website:
https://snl.depaul.edu/student-resources/graduate-resources/Pages/special-documents-forms-andtemplates.aspx
Students admitted prior to Autumn 2012 should register for EA 507, Phase I, 1.0 credit hours and EA 508, Phase II,
1.0 credit hours. Note: Consult with your Faculty Mentor and/or Assoc. Director of Graduate Programs to confirm
prior to registering.
Students admitted as of Autumn 2012, and beyond, should register for Phase I: EA 505
(0.5 credit hours) and Phase II: EA 506, (0.5 credit hours).
DEPAUL UNIVERSITY  SCHOOL FOR NEW LEARNING  MA PROGRAM IN EDUCATING ADULTS (MAEA)
1 E. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, IL 60604 snlgrad@depaul.edu (312-362-8448)
PROPOSAL TEMPLATE FOR APPLIED INQUIRY PROJECT
The MAEA Applied Inquiry Project (AIP) is the culmination of your learning in the program. As such, the project will
demonstrate that you can apply the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you have gained from your graduate study
to a practice-based project focused on educating adults. It should draw on the foundation you have already
built—review the sources you were introduced to, and the work you have already done, in your prior courses. For
your project, choose something that matters to you, connects to your practice, and will be relevant and useful to a
primary user audience.
The PROPOSAL will serve as your roadmap for the planning and implementation of your project. Set your compass
for how this project can make a difference and for whom. Please use the guiding questions that follow as the
template for your Proposal. You can download and save the template as a word doc. See the MAEA Guidebook for
details on the role of your academic committee and review, assessment, and approval processes.
Key Terms
Applied: Practical, useful, influences change/improvement
Inquiry: Thinking strategically about problems and situations; seeking multiple data points; engaging in critical
reflection on your experience; checking out working hunches; changing your mind/approach based on new
information
Alignment: Each element of the proposal and final product(s) influences the other. As your work unfolds, monitor
the links between and among the elements and adjust accordingly. Alignment is an iterative process, so you can
anticipate the draft-redraft process as you obtain feedback from your academic committee.
Samples of Proposals and Final Products
See: https://snl.depaul.edu/student-resources/graduate-resources/Pages/graduate-writing-samples.aspx
GUIDING QUESTIONS/Proposal Template
The questions below serve as a template for your Proposal. Consult with your faculty mentor and project advisor
on a regular basis. Locate resources that can help you with writing mechanics, organization, and correct use of
APA. Keep in mind that the AIP is not a conventional master’s thesis or academic research paper. Use this
template, not those from another program or website.
Section I - Basic Shape of the Project
1.
Working Title: The title should convey the essence of your project. Use key words—imagine
someone is searching for information about your topic. The title should lead them to your project.
(See Samples on website)
2.
Description: Orient the reader to what the project will be about (approx. 2-3 concise paragraphs).
a. As you frame the project, think back to your core courses about helping adults learn. What type of
project is this- -does it mainly involve designing, assessing, evaluating, and/or facilitating learning…
or, some combination?
b. Establish the boundaries and scope of your project. Be clear about the starting and ending points
(i.e., from what-to-what?) For example, perhaps your project—


Is the start of something new so you want to pilot/field test the new venture, or
Revolves around something that is already underway, and you want to take it to the
next level or build in another component, or
 Is an important slice of a more complex piece of work, or
 Has already been implemented and now you want to find out how well things have
worked and what might be changed/improved
c. Include an explanation of your specific connection with this project and why it matters to you.
3.
Audience: Identify who will be the primary user(s) of your final product. (One paragraph).
a.
In keeping with the applied nature of your project, think of the primary audience as ‘the user’—the
person, group, and/or body who will make use of your work. In the case of reflective practice
projects, the primary audience could be yourself (e.g., reflections on your journey as a trainer or as a
facilitator of learning).
Note: Your academic audience is a given, i.e., your academic committee and the Graduate Student
Program Review Committee (GSPRC). This template includes the expectations of your academic
audience.
4.
Deliverables for Your Primary Audience: Identify (briefly) what you have in mind as the final product
for this project (see also Section 4 where you will add more details about the final product as a whole).
a. Keep in mind the frame and scope of your project
b. Consider the style and tone that will be appropriate for your primary audience
c. Consider what materials (artifacts) will be most useful to this audience.
5.
Elements of Better Practice: Throughout the MAEA program, you have been examining ways in
which you are developing and applying the three Elements of Better Practice (agency, flexibility, reflection).
Discuss how this project will draw on your capacity for these three elements (see MAEA Guidebook for the
facets for each element). (1 paragraph for each element).
Section II – Literature (re topic & type of project)
6. You will be drawing on the literature to identify the main ideas-theories-concepts-models that are linked most
directly to your topic. Provide a thematic review of this literature that shows how you anticipate linking practicetheory-practice.
a. Refer to courses where you did thematic reviews, such as Finding & Managing Information,
Conducting Practice-based Inquiry, and Enhancing Practice with Theory in Adult Learning. For the
Proposal, your review should be several pages in length, but doesn’t need to be exhaustive at
this stage; you will continue to update your literature review as you carry out your project.
7. You also will be drawing on the literature that informs and supports the type of project you are doing (approx.12 pages).
a. Identify and discuss the literature that informs and supports the type of project that you will be
doing (e.g., design, facilitation, assessment, evaluation, reflection on your own practice).
Section III - Inquiry Design
As you learned in EA 525, practice-based inquiry (PBI) can take various forms and often does not fit neatly into just
one methodology. Regardless of the specific nature of your PBI, it can be connected to some elements within at
least one methodology. Further, it will involve some form of collecting data/information, and will require careful
analysis and interpretation to substantiate your work.
8.
Identify which methodology(ies) — approach or perspective—that is most relevant to your project
(e.g., action research, case study, ethnography, field work, phenomenology, quasi-experimental, reflective
inquiry).
a. Describe your approach
b. Support your choice with citations from the literature on research methods
9.
Identify which data gathering methods—techniques or procedures for collecting data—you will use
in this project. Consider what you are trying to find out and accomplish with this project. You are encouraged
to seek data/information from multiple sources, e.g., document review, interviews, focus groups,
observation, surveys, critical reflection on your own experience (prior and current). You might have been
accumulating data from some of these sources before your project took shape—most likely, these ‘prior data’
(what you already know and the basis for knowing) are influencing the nature of your project.
a.
b.
c.
d.
Identify what ‘prior data’ (and from what sources) are influencing that shape of your project
Identify the new data that you will be collecting, and how
Consider how reflections on your own experience could be a useful source of data
Consider how you will get access to participants from whom you will be collecting the new
data/information
e. Support your selection of data gathering methods with citations from the research methods
literature.
f. Consult with your Faculty Mentor about LRB/IRB regarding use of human subjects.
10.
Identify data analysis— describe the approaches and tools you will use to help you interpret and
make sense of the data.
Section IV - Deliverables for the (Whole) Final Product
This is an opportunity to practice your own form of ‘backward design’—recall that in EA 516 and EA 526 you
learned how to formulate the desired outcomes, working both backwards and forwards from the outcomes. Refer
back to Section I. Your final product is likely to consist of several parts/sections, some aimed at the primary user
audience and others at the academic audience. It may be helpful to think of your final product as a portfolio with
tabs. While your final product will come into sharper focus as your carry it out, anticipate now what it might look
like at the end.
Keep in mind: what is the story that you want to share, with whom, and in what forms? What will be your specific
deliverables?
You are encouraged to draft a tentative Table of Contents or a mind map of the final product.
Identify how you might present the body of your work that is aimed at your primary audience.
11.
a.
Consider what the primary audience needs to know about the relevant literature, inquiry process,
what you have found out/have to offer, what you recommend for the future (and the like)
b. Keep in mind that products need not be limited only to written pieces
12.
Consider how you will show your academic audience that you have made good use of the literature
and carried out systematic inquiry. Appendices might be the place for the more comprehensive work that is
not necessary for your primary audience.